People often ask me why I write about sports. There are bigger issues in the world: wars, famine, climate change, the presidential election.

In the face of all these crises, why do sports matter, even more, why do Miami University sports matter? After all, we are relegated to the back page of the newspaper, and who could have time to keep up with the 17 sports teams Miami supports?

But after writing about sports for The Miami Student for three years, I think I finally have an answer in my final column.

For one, there are no “do-overs” in sports. Miami University recently instituted a policy that allows students to “re-take” classes in which they have performed poorly. If the student gets a better grade, the failure is removed from their GPA like it never happened. Not so in sports.

If you miss the game-winning shot, shank the last-second field goal or drop a touchdown pass, there isn’t the chance to redo the play so people will forget about it.

People remember the ball squirting through the Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs in the 1986 World Series, the timeout Chris Webber called ending Michigan University’s championship hopes in the 1993 NCAA Championship basketball game and of course Ray Finkle’s missed field goal for the Miami Dolphins.

Miami fans especially felt the heartbreak that accompanied their loss in the 2009 NCAA Hockey Championships. But it’s the unforgiving nature of sports that draws us in.

Because even through the difficult moments, sports bring people together.

At Goggin Ice Center, 3,000 people come together to jump, cheer and scream for the Miami hockey team. If that happened in any other context, the SWAT team would be arriving to control a riot. But in sports, such enthusiasm is not only embraced but celebrated.

Sports teams allow total strangers to form an immediate bond through their love for their favorite team, whether it’s the RedHawks, Redskins or even Browns. Few things in life give us more pride than rooting for our favorite sports team.

Most Miami students aren’t from Oxford, and probably did not cheer for Miami sports growing up, but the moment we come on campus that fact doesn’t matter because we can become fans, and often fans for life, giving Miamians everywhere a common bond.

You have to earn your way in sports. There are no handouts and you cannot buy your way onto a collegiate or professional team.

In sports, it doesn’t matter where you came from, or how much money you make, or what your parents do for a living, as long as you can play. There’s no free pass onto the Miami basketball team simply because your parents donated a library.

Crazy things happen every single day in sports. Overcoming impossible odds? It’s an everyday occurrence in sports. Whether it’s an athlete beating cancer to return to the field or the underdog with a one in a million shot taking down the favorite, sports are where amazing happens.

“Little” Miami has taken on some of the biggest names in college sports and come out on top a number of times, such as in the 1999 NCAA Tournament, when Wally Szczerbiak led the RedHawks to victories over big-name programs like the University of Washington and the University of Utah, schools with athletic budgets at least twice the size of Miami.

But the outcome of such games did not come down to money or school size because on that day, Miami was better and the odds didn’t matter.

Sports don’t give us an escape from life; they allow us to experience life in ways you can’t find elsewhere.

So it’s not why sports matter, it’s why don’t they matter more.